ohmidog! Rocks!

This morning I got up really early because I wanted to walk eight miles with Leslie Sansone before our special guest arrived at ten o'clock. By seven o'clock I had walked the eight miles and then I sat down at the kitchen table and worked on our newsletter on my laptop.

At nine-thirty Kinky called me from Kerrville. He was having breakfast in town with Frank and he had some good news to tell me about the rescue ranch. After we talked about his news I said, "Kinky, this morning John Woestendiek is coming out to see the rescue ranch. He is a retired writer for the Baltimore Sun and he has an awesome web site for dog lovers. It's called ohmidog! He and his dog Ace, who is a  big mutt, are on a cross-country journey visiting animal shelters, dog parks, etc. and he writes a daily blog about their adventures. I really hope that you can meet him. When are you coming back to the ranch?"

"I do want to meet John. I should be back in an hour or so..."

When our phone conversation ended I went outside to find Tony, but found volunteers walking our dogs! It was a very nice surprise, because I wasn't expecting them. I want to thank Jim, Nina, Leo, Matt, Meghan and Sally for coming out and getting all of our dogs walked today!

At ten o'clock sharp I went outside to greet John when he pulled up to the trailer in his red Jeep. Before we shook hands I knew I liked him. Before going into the trailer for some coffee John told me that he had left his dog Ace in Bandera. "Our friend Judith Pannebaker is baby sitting him for me today at The Bandera County Courier and I know that he is being spoiled rotten as we speak."

As we drank coffee and visited John started interviewing me and taking notes, so I grabbed a pen and paper and took notes too for tonight's blog. At one point during our fun visit I gave John copies of my first and second book and then he told me that he has a new non-fiction book coming out this Fall that is being published by Penguin / Avery Publishing and the title of his book is Dog, Inc.: The Uncanny Behind The Scenes Story of Cloning Man's Best Friend. 


After an interesting conversation about his research and writing the book he asked me to give him a tour of the rescue ranch. Before starting the tour John put his notes and my books into his Jeep and then he grabbed his camera and the tour commenced.

As I introduced our dogs to John and told him some of their incredible stories he took pictures of them. Before the tour was over John had met our great dog-walking volunteers and he had asked me several questions about certain dogs. Then Kermit took us over to the Lodge for a fun visit with Kinky. Here is a picture that I took of Kinky and John outside by the Friedman Family Bone Orchard.

John and Kinky had much to talk about, so I mainly stood back and listened and learned something new. Before leaving the Lodge, Kinky signed two of his books and gave them to John. As Kermit took us over the river and through the woods to the rescue ranch John thanked me for a fun visit and seemed amazed that he now had four new books to read.

When we arrived back at the trailer John and I exchanged business cards, phone numbers and e-mail addresses and then he gave me a handful of the cutest refrigerator magnets that had a picture of Ace on it along with information about his web site: ohmydog! Then we said our goodbyes to each other and he took off for Wolfmueller's Books to buy some more Kinky books and to meet Sandy and Jon.

After Tone and I ate lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon working on the newsletter. Around five-thirty Tony told me that he was going to ride around and take pictures so I decided to walk two more miles with Leslie to make it a total of ten miles today.

Y'all have a great evening!